So, last week, as I'm laying on the air mattress in my new little apartment in San Antonio TX, I get a little buzz in my pocket for a little notification that Love has been Greenlit. After 502 days of spreading the word and begging people to click that yes button, it's finally happened, Love has been greenlit.

Right now I'm still waiting on my desktop to get to me from the moving truck on its way from Albany NY, but I'll sequester my desire to stay productive by letting loose a few of my neat plans for Love on Steam.

Achievements

This is probably the least exciting or the most exciting announcement depending on what kind of player you are. Thanks to the Steam integration for Game Maker Studio, I will be able to program in some achievements for Love. I'll be working with my achievement-seeking friend Levi to come up with fun, creative, and worthwhile achievements for the game. No Avatar: The Burning Earth on XBox 360 from 2007 style achievements in this one.

Leaderboards

At the end of Love, you get a grade and a score, based on how many spawns you placed, how many deaths you had, how quick you beat each level, etc. Did you know that Steam has global leaderboards? Well guess what, Love is going to take advantage of that. Show people that you're the best. Speaking of competition...

Speedrun Mode

I've been wanting to add this since I spent 7 days watching the amazing people at Awesome Games Done Quick raised over a million dollars for charity. This mode will take out most of if not all of the random parts of the game and allow it to be a very speedrunner friendly game. It'll even track your time to within a 30th of a second, and post your final time on a separate leaderboard. I'm a fan of speedrunning, though I'm not particularly good at it myself. At least I can contribute to the community by giving something to run.

Platform Release Schedule

I anticipate having Love available on Steam for Windows based PCs within the first two weeks of February, barring any unforeseeable complications. The priority will then be to make sure Macs are supported. Then, the one that will most likely be difficult for me, Linux. Linux is obviously important to me, because I very much want to support the SteamOS movement.

The Future

Once these things are squared away, I'll be returning to the core game and adding even more. I've got level concepts I'm excited to toy with, and I intend to release these levels as free updates. Love will launch at $1.99 (though it will eventually retail for $2.99), and everyone who bought the game through other services will receive a Steam Key as soon as I am able to give those out. I'll also add support for the Steam Controller as soon as I get my hands on one.

I hope that you'll pick up Love when it launches in February, and that you'll show the fine folks at Valve that they made a good choice when they greenlit Love.

It's been a while since I've posted an announcement or any kind of info, but I wanted to make sure that the people following Love have an idea of what's going on.

Rank Update!

We're currently #72 on Steam Greenlight! With over 8,500 Yes Votes, we've cracked into the top 100, so we have a firm placement of where we are among the other amazing Greenlight games. According to Steam's stats, a game in the top 50 has an average of 9,600 yes votes, and we're sitting pretty at over 8,600 yes votes. Simple math dictates that if we can get a thousand more Yes votes we could very well see Love breaking through to the top 50, and that'd give us a great shot at being Greenlit. Hope is knocking at the door, so please, help us by getting your fellow Steam Friends to lend a vote.

Demo Update!

I've rebuilt the demo for Love and included the first 6 levels of the main arcade game! This includes the latest updates to the engine and the stages, so give it a try!
[love-the-game.com]

We've also currently got a free demo on the OUYA Micro Console! The game will hopefully be available in full sometime next year. Just waiting on the ability to add In-App Purchases to Game Maker Studio games. Otherwise I may actually release a side-loadable APK available through Love-The-Game.com.

The Future

Love is a meaty little experience for $1.99, but I want to make it meatier. There's a million features I'd like to add, like bringing back online leaderboards (preferably cross-platform), achievements, Steam Workshop for Love Custom, Configurations, Mappable Keys, Personal Stats, and much more. More than anything, I'd like to create even more levels for the main game. Each level I make takes a lot of time creating the geometry, the functions, and testing relentlessly, and hopefully with the game being available for sale on Steam, I can take the time to do that, and add all the features I'd like to bring to Love.

Rebranding

The original Love was made in Multimedia Fusion, and when I made the jump to Game Maker 7, I tacked on the "+" to show that it was an improved game. That was years ago, and now the game is something much, much more cohesive, and rather than adding another +, I'm dropping the first one. The game's now simply being called "Love" , and it's the game it should've always been. So if you write a blog post about it, tweet about it, or review it for your site, please refer to it as Love.

And that's it!If you got through all that, thanks for reading. I hope that you'll continue to follow my progress, and that you'll help us get the Yes votes we need to get Greenlit. If you have any comments, you can leave them here, or tweet at me at @thatsmytrunks anytime. Thanks for your time!

Hey folks, I've finally pushed the new Love++ engine update to all the channels where Love+ is available. You can now get it through Level Up Studios or Desura for $1.99.

Along with this update comes the Mac version of the game. Simply buy the game at either of the digital platforms, and you'll be given a download that contains both the Mac and PC versions.

You can pick it up at Level Up Studios at the following link, and by getting it there, you're also entitled to a free Steam Key if/when the game gets greenlit.
http://levelupstudios.com/love

If you're a fan of Desura, you can pick the game up there too. Note, you are not entitled to a Steam Key if purchased through Desura, but you do get to enjoy the bonuses of easy updates and having it as an officical part of your library.
http://desura.com/games/love-by-fred-wood

I hope you'll vote yes for Love+, pick it up through one of the above venues, or both! Enjoy the game, and let me know what you think or what you want through the Greenlight Page comment section.

For the last few days I've been slaving over a hot keyboard to get Love+ running on Mac and Linux, as well as add some new features. I can now promise that when Love+ gets Greenlit, it will offer Mac and Linux support as well.

Some bug fixes:
- Some players had a strange interpolation problem that made the game fuzzy. No more.
- Player movement slightly tightened.
- Game runs in wide-er screen than before (3:2).
- Some levels have been visually modified to suit the wider view.
- Camera has been rehauled to have a smooth follow mechanic.

I've ported the game from its original GameMaker 7 engine to GameMaker Studio, allowing for these new ports. The method for doing this was rebuilding the whole game from the bits and pieces of the original, but the result is a pitch-perfect version of the original.